When Divine Mercy Sunday comes every year on the Sunday after Easter, St. Faustina Kowalska and St. John Paul II come to mind. Undoubtedly, in the last decades, they are the two great lights spreading the fire of Divine Mercy to the world.

In his homily for the canonization of St. Faustina, St. John Paul II reminded the faithful that Christ has taught us “man not only receives and experiences the mercy of God, but is also called to practice mercy towards others: ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy’ (Matthew 5:7). … Jesus bent over every kind of human poverty, material and spiritual.”

John Paul II also said in his homily, “This led to the spiritual and corporal ‘works of mercy.’ Here mercy became a concrete way of being ‘neighbor’ to one’s neediest brothers and sisters.” 

This is what the saints exemplify, through practicing works of mercy and other acts of holiness. They truly practiced the ABCs of mercy. As Jesus tells us through Faustina, as recorded in her diary, “I am giving you three ways of exercising mercy toward your neighbor: the first — by deed; the second — by word; the third — by prayer. In these three degrees is contained the fullness of mercy, and it is an unquestionable proof of love for Me. By this means a soul glorifies and pays reverence to my mercy” (742).

The saints teach us we all can follow Jesus’ directives to practice mercy — among the poor, in hospitals and among the troubled, in the confessional, in a cloister or at a convent door.

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